Year: 2009

It’s one of my daily reads too 🙂 Will soon need to find another for the 3.5 years until the next one 🙂

Not sure why – but the Volvo round the world Ocean race doesn’t hold my interest the same way. Maybe the Vendee single handed race is a lot more intimate with the skippers.

Today’s cricket has been more relaxing than yesterday’s rugby 🙂 We had 16 Welsh vs 15 English in the rugby, definite change of result caused by frustrating referee.

I’ve long been fascinated by the strength of character needed to take on an around-the-world trip in a sailboat. I know I’d never have anywhere near the courage that these intrepid adventurers have, which makes my appreciation of them that much more profound.

Thank you for sharing the link to the race. I now have a new daily read!

Popped by from Tanya’s today. Hope your weekend’s been a relaxing one so far.

One of the things I’ve been following over the past few months has been the Vendee Globe around the world single handed yacht race.

30 sailors started and the first 3 are now back in. They’re not quite beating Jules Verne’s time of 80 days, the winner Michel Desjoyeaux achieved a record time of 84 days, 3 hours, 9 minutes travelling a total of 28303.2 nautical miles.

Valentines day yesterday was special in particular for one of the people involved in this race – our girl Sam Davies finished at 41 minutes past midnight on the 14th. Sam’s been the sailor I’ve been most interested in seeing info from over the past 3 months of the race, there’s always heaps of personality bursting through the news coming from the pink Roxy boat. Lots of grins, laughs and inspiration from how Sam’s tackled the special challenges of this race.

Not quite sure if Sam will get a 3rd place, as there’s still a little bit of time left for Marc Guillemot to maybe sneak in ahead. When Yann Eliès broke his leg on Generali in the Southern Ocean, Sam Davies and Marc Guillemot both received some credit time for going to the aid of the stricken sailor. Sam got 50 hours less credit (went less out of the way), so there’s still chance for Marc Guillemot to finish ahead.

It’s been an eventful race, with a lot of the boats suffering dismasting and other critical damage. Three boats lost their keels (the heavy thing sticking out the bottom that balances the mast to keep them upright). One of those capsized, with the rescue leading to another boat retiring due to losing its mast. The second retired at the Azores (so close to finishing!) The third boat to lose its keel is Marc Guillemot’s Safran and it’s a huge credit to his skill as a sailor that he’s been able to nurse his boat home with that loss of stability.

The other Brit skippers are coming in hard too – Dee Caffari’s had a tough race as well, as she’s had to take great care with the mainsail on her boat.

I’m going to miss keeping up with the Vendee Globe, looking forward to the next one coming around in 4 years so I can follow the adventures of my (second? 😉 favourite British sailor 🙂

Here’s a link to the page where you can read more about this great race.

Currently watching the West Indies vs England Test Match coming from the old Antigua Recreation Ground. The original 2nd Test got cancelled due to the ground not being up to the job. They moved it to the old international ground in Antigua and it’s looking like a good decision so far. Even with an almost total lack of prepartion, it’s looking like a very good pitch. England are batting and doing extremely well, looking to put a huge total on the board. There’s been a few signs of the pitch misbehaving so far (odd balls keeping low) but it’s promising to be a decent game.

The message he is preaching is illegal in both this country and his. he is currently awaiting trial there, and would have to be arrested here if he came in & incited racial hatred, so it's a bit pointless letting him in. The EU does not allow freedom of movement to criminals!

Yeah – last time it was the batsmen who were suffering with the missiles, this time it’s the fielders and bowlers being in severe danger of breaking things while running in …

It’s not the most natural looking game cricket !

Game’s looking like starting Sunday now … at a different game where instead of the pitch, the main stand has been condemned. We shall see 🙂

That’s awful. Surely they don’t have to play on an unfit and dangerous ground? That’s just not funny when when you’re having missiles hurled at you at speed!

Hope you have more luck watching the rugby. Netchick hopes so too!

Macs are still a little expensive for me … although saying that, if expensive stuff lasts longer, then it can turn out cheaper because you’ve only bought 1 good thing instead of 3 bad ones.

I’m going to have to check out Linux again 🙂 Not really looked at it since shoe horning one of the early dists on to a 4Mb K5. And I just happen to have the carcass of my old PC lying idle …

Bit of a farce today …

I started this morning looking to get the Task Of The Day for work done as rapidly as I could get away with doing it so I’d be clear for going home early enough to let me watch the cricket all afternoon. Good plan … Part A got done handily, even with a few distractions coming in. And working flexible hours will allow me to catch up through next week.

Part B is a different story. 10 years ago, Test Cricket saw its shortest game get called off after just 10 overs and 1 ball, after England batsmen got hit 7 times on a dangerous pitch. What can happen is that the strip of ground that a game is played on becomes unstable, with the bounce either going low or high. Low bounce isn’t so much an issue, high bounce isn’t that great an issue if it’s consistent and predictable. It becomes dangerous when balls of a length where you’d expect the bounce to go hip high, these go over your head (if you’re lucky!) That’s what cricketers call Variable bounce and without the protective gear, it can be lethal. And even with the protective gear, it leads to broken bones.

That’s what happened 10 years ago, today is a little different. On this day, the English and West Indian teams have arrived to find a ground that is totally unfit for games of any kind. The problem is the footing … So much sand in the pitch to attempt to get decent drainage that when the bowlers run up to bowl, their feet slip out from under them. Holes being dug as they go. Potential for ankles to get twisted and ligaments to get snapped. Memories of the English bowler Simon Jones who suffered a horrific knee injury in conditions like this in Brisbane 3 years ago, an injury he has not fully recovered from yet.

I’ve played in conditions like this ! It’s not fun. And you breathe a hefty sigh of relief when the game ends and you’re physically intact. There’s a ground I started refusing to play on because the square just wasn’t up to it. Instead of sand, this place suffered from ground which turned quagmire. Almost every game I played there usually had me getting a leg muscle explode on me. That’s from my legs over adjusting from the little slips and slides caused by poor footing … and this is with spiked shoes on. It’s also the ground where I broke my nose, although that was utterly my fault, not the pitches 🙂

So what’s happening over in Antigua now ? No play today, so I’ve been having the talking head coverage on in the background while trying to slog more through Matter by Iain M Banks. (It’s his new Culture novel and sadly, I’m finding it hard work – glacial pace compared to his usual). No more play today and I don’t think there will be any play at this ground for months (it’s that bad).

I don’t think cricket will be distracting me away from the 6 Nations Rugby this weekend. A shame, I’d have liked to see England get back on terms.

More here on the Cricinfo site : http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/wiveng2009/content/current/story/390647.html

PS Looking on the bright side, this is a game that won’t be ruined by the antics of one of the umpires … Cricket is currently suffering from a clutch of very poor umpires at international level and the worst of them is due to perform in this game.

Addon – extra bit for CQ who is probably wondering what I mean about a lady singing for Mercy 🙂 Here we go : Youtube link. Lots of potential with this particular one.

Or have we moved away from that …

I’ve been watching with concern some of the news stories about a certain Crazy Person who’s been trying to spread his own brand of religious hatred. I usually stay away from talking about politics and religion but I’m making an exception here.

The issue is one Geert Wilders, who has attempted to enter the UK today because of his anti-Islamist views. The link above is to the BBC News story about his being refused entry.

I’m finding this a little scary because :

It shows that we have a few people who make up their own rules on laws in this country. Geert Wilders is a European citizen, which means he should have access to all European countries. I’m not altogether clear how legal it was to exclude him. What laws are going to be ignored next ? And my long memory is remembering a certain Deputy PM who was not charged with assault after striking someone who threw an egg at him.

It exposes even more naivety on the part of the people who are supposed to be running the country. How to get a hateful person with an evil message more attention ? Ban him from talking ! Or issue a decree attempting to silence him. I’m not sure how much of the world would have heard of Salman Rushdie or Dan Brown if they hadn’t had measures taken by various parties to attempt to stop them talking. The usual effect of silencing a message is typically an amplification of that message.

As a “democracy”, we’re supposed to allow free speech. Allowing people to talk doesn’t mean we have to listen. Same as putting violent images on the telly doesn’t mean we have to watch them and I didn’t rush out to buy the Manhunt game because of the notoriety induced by its ultraviolent* nature. I think the various groups who like to ban everything, apparently for our protection, whether we like it or not. I’ve got a message of my own for those people – “I want to make my own mind up.”

*(I don’t shy away from violence or death in games – I’ve been known to Death Star inhabited planets regularly in Moo2. But if ultra violence is a game’s only selling point, sorry – not interested here)

I don’t think the people interfering with freedom of speech or freedom of expression are too interested in allowing other people to make their own minds up about what they want to be exposed to. I’d rather check something out for myself than go by what someone else tries to tell me what to think. Maybe they don’t want us to actually think.

So what should have happened today, instead of the media circus generated by excluding this fellow ?

Let him in. Allow him to present his message … to an empty room. And when asked by the media about it, tell them that we were aware of the individual but only wished to give him as much attention as his credibility deserved. Which would be none. That kind of statement would quite happily show a distancing from the message.

I wonder if the next step is to ban soapboxes from Hyde Park ?

PS Time to scrub my hands … talking about politics makes me feel unclean ! 🙂

Even a gig isn’t enough for XP. A lot of the new netbooks ship with 1 Gb of RAM and XP, and I shudder to think how slowly they must run.

Give me a Mac or a Linux machine any day…